by Georgia Byng
In a chocolate aiwoplane.”
All around the table the other children laughed. Then, as though suddenly bored, the small girl clapped her hands. A servant appeared with the air moped. Gathering her tutu dress and snatching the grasshopper’s cage from the table, Princess Fang hopped aboard her scooter and shot out of the room.
Molly felt strangely satisfied. Although she was still stuck without her powers of hypnotism, she was feeling excited about her amazing new skill. She thought of her fortune, “The robbed one who smiles steals something from the thief,” and Molly smiled inside.
She looked across the table at Rocky, who sat waiting to be told what to do.
“I’ll help you,” Molly found herself silently promising him. “I got you into this mess; I’ll get you out of it.”
Miss Cribbins dabbed her black-lipsticked mouth with a napkin and then pushed her stool back. “We will start your lessons this evening, Molly,” she said sharply. “No time to waste.” Molly was taken by surprise. Outside the window the golden sun was setting. It was time to wind down, not wind up, she thought.
“But I’m a bit tired for lessons now,” she said.
“My lessons will wake you up.” Miss Cribbins retorted unsympathetically. As she stood up, her cat-spider scuttled up her leg and perched on her shoulder. It eyed Petula.
“Miaaaaaoww SSSSSS!” it hissed. Then Miss Cribbins snapped her fingers by Rocky’s ear, and like some tamed animal he got up. “You, Moon, will meet me in the classroom by the weeping willow in an hour.”
Ten
The air in the palace gardens was thick with scent as evening jasmine flowers opened. Molly was outside the nursery. She pushed the pad on the wall and the door slid open. She’d decided to pay Nurse Meekles a visit.
Inside, three beautiful women dressed in long white robes like maidens out of a fairy tale sat holding babies. One held a tiny infant a few weeks old. The other babies, both very pretty, were bigger and were holding their heads up and squawking like parrots. Four young children ran about, chasing one another on the flowered lawn of the nursery garden. Then Nurse Meekles, dressed in a blue-and-white-striped pinafore over a pale yellow dress, came out of the building. She was holding a bowl of peaches.
“Five more minutes, my little prawn dumplings, and it will be ion time,” she announced. The children halted for a moment as they grumbled. Then they continued romping around. Nurse Meekles watched them fondly, then her eyes caught sight of Petula and Molly. A flash of recognition crossed her face as she matched Micky’s looks with Molly’s, and for a second the bowl nearly slipped from her hands.
“Can I … help you?” she asked uneasily as Molly approached.
“I just wanted to say hello,” said Molly.
“Princess Fang’s quarters are back through there.” Her voice trembled slightly as she glanced toward the door. Her face was tanned, round, and flat and smile lines creased the skin beside her blue, slanted eyes. Her black hair was arranged in a cottage-loaf style. She reminded Molly of the kind lady, Mrs. Trinklebury, who’d looked after her when she’d been little. Molly suddenly felt homesick and full of tears.
“Can’t I stay for just a few minutes? It’s so nice here.” Molly watched the kids beside her kick a ball. “I’ve got no one to talk to.” Nurse Meekles furtively checked that the camera trained on her garden was looking away. Then she put her hand up and touched Molly’s cheek.
“Had a bit of trouble with your hair, haven’t you, my petal?” she said with a smile. “You’re the split image of him. Micky told me that a girl had arrived, a girl called Molly Moon, who claimed to be his twin sister. He said it was a trick. But I remember the day he arrived here with Redhorn. I know about this time-traveling malarkey.” She shook her head and sighed. “I hear you’ve been on the machine.” Molly could feel a dry lump rising in her throat. She didn’t want to cry—not now, with this woman she barely knew. She glanced about for the children, who were now digging about in the sandpit.
“Who are these children? Where are their parents?”
Nurse Meekles rearranged the peaches in her basket. “I c-can’t tell you,” she stammered and shook her head. Above it swam pictures of mothers in long dresses sitting outside what looked like gingerbread houses. Then, as if talking to the peaches, she said, “I know what goes on here. I’m ashamed to be part of it, but someone has to do the job. I love my children. I love Micky. I hardly get to see him these days.” She looked beseechingly into Molly’s eyes and whispered, “I’m lucky to have my mind, Molly. I fear that machine, you see. Anyone with their right mind would. I’m sorry about what they did to you. I can’t say any more.” A small boy tugged at her pinafore and pushed a muddy rubber toy squid against her hip.
“Can I get squid’s dirt off in the ionic cleaner?” She nodded to him.
“I’d better be going,” she said hurriedly. “You must too.” The old woman stroked Molly’s arm. “Good luck, dumpling.” Molly watched as she rounded the children up, like a goose with her goslings. And they went inside. The three women got up to follow. The one with the tiniest baby took slightly longer. Her eyes were empty, except when she looked at her child, when they shone.
Molly and Petula left the nursery area, and the green door slipped shut behind them. They took a left turn and came to a balcony. This one overlooked another mountaintop residence and below, in a walled garden, Molly could see a group of children sitting at a garden table. A servant poured them drinks. These children were behaving oddly, just like the children in Princess Fang’s palace. One was reading from a screen, two were immersed in serious conversation, and the fourth was smoking a cigar. Molly supposed they had all been on the mind machine and so were now super-intelligent. At least, Molly thought, the princess wasn’t too mean to let her friends have a go on her jellyfish toy. The curling cigar smoke wafted up to Molly’s nose. She waited a while to see what the children’s parents looked like, but no one came.
Molly leaned her elbows on the balcony wall and watched as small flycopters buzzed about the cliff lower down. She scanned the horizon to see whether she could spot another cow with wings, but instead, against the ember-orange sky, she saw the silhouette of a flying person. Molly rubbed her eyes. It must be the dusky light and her tiredness playing tricks on her. She picked up Petula and gave her a hug.
“How many of these weird people live up here, Petula? Two hundred? Three hundred? And how many hypnotized people are down there? Fifty thousand? This is a terrible country, Petula. It’s got a creepy royal family that has everything, and people working for them all dressed like characters from nursery rhymes and fairy tales, who have nothing—not even their own minds. Oh, what are we going to do, Petula? We can’t get back to our own time. I don’t think we can escape this place either. And even if we did, where would we go?”
Petula licked Molly’s cheek. It tasted salty. Molly’s hair, now hanging from her head like a limp wind sock, stank of gel. Oh Molly, what are we doing here? Petula whined. Then a metallic bell chimed. Molly groaned.
“That’s the seven o’clock bell, Petula. Come on. It’s time for ‘Fun with Cribbins.’”
Eleven
Miss Cribbins was waiting expectantly in the classroom, clicking her spiky heels on the floor. Her hair was now black. Molly wasn’t sure whether she was wearing a wig or whether her hair actually changed its color. The dark hair made the woman’s powdered face look even paler.
“You’re late. Five minutes late,” she said, pointing to a strip of numbers on the wall that looked more like a section of a measuring tape than a clock. The door bleeped shut. Molly and Petula cast their eyes about the room. It was bare except for a table in the center of it that was piled with books. Old-fashioned books, as far as this time was concerned. Molly eyed their spines. There was The Oxford Companion to Philosophy and another called War and Peace. There was an instruction manual entitled Nuclear Fusion Power Explained and a thick tome called The Dictionary of Theology. Molly felt tired just reading the t
itles. She dreaded to think how the insides of the books would make her feel. Beside the table was a metal, shoebox-sized machine with a screen displaying a graphlike picture. And on the table lay two brown rubbery things the size of hazelnuts.
“Sit!” Miss Cribbins instructed, pointing to the chair by the table. Her cat-spider suddenly appeared and crept up the front of her suit to settle on her shoulder. “These are what you’ll be working on. Open the first book.”
Molly didn’t like being ordered around in this way, but she did as she was told. She opened Nuclear Fusion Power Explained and scanned the first page.
“Umm, Miss Cribbins,” Molly said, “I’m not really interested in learning about nuclear stuff. And to tell you the truth”—Molly threw a cursory glance at the other books— “I don’t really fancy reading those books either. Haven’t you got anything that I might find more interesting?” Molly felt she was being more than reasonable. Half of her was yelling, Molly, you don’t have to do any lessons at all! This isn’t school, you know!
Miss Cribbins stroked the bridge of her perfectly straight nose. “Later you will have the pleasure of absorbing some eighteenth-century poetry. But at this moment these subjects are your task.”
“But these books are for adults,” Molly objected. “I wouldn’t understand the stuff that’s in them, let alone learn it.”
“You can just learn it off by heart. Then it doesn’t matter whether you understand it or not.”
Molly gawped. “You must be joking! Anyway, what’s the point? If you’re going to put me on that mind machine again in a few years to extract my hypnotizing talent, and suck all my thoughts out, then why should I bother learning anything at all?” Molly closed the book. “This book isn’t of any use to me!”
Miss Cribbins’s beauty spot twitched on the side of her cheek. “Who said it had to be of use to you?” she said, pulling a thick, silver traylike contraption out from the wall behind her and locking it onto the table. All at once Molly understood why she was having lessons. The information in these books was intended for Princess Fang and her machine. Molly would learn about philosophy or whatever it was Fang wanted stored on her machine, and then eventually they would put that electric cap on her and suck out all the information from it. They wanted to use Molly’s brain to learn and remember, and then they would rob it.
“I’m not a hard drive for a computer,” Molly said angrily.
“Put your hands in this,” Miss Cribbins directed, ignoring Molly’s comment.
Molly now looked at what was on the table. The silver block in front of her was indented with the shape of two hands. Molly’s hands were now starting to feel a little sweaty in apprehension. She lay them down so that they were cradled in the silver molds.
“Other way. Palms up!” Miss Cribbins tutted impatiently.
Molly followed her instructions and then regretted it. At once her hands were stuck. Molly wished she’d refused. Miss Cribbins now attached the two rubbery things to Molly’s temples. Then she switched on the screen. A red dot pulsed there on its graph, sinister and threatening. Briskly Miss Cribbins took the book about nuclear fusion and held it in front of Molly’s eyes.
“Is this the correct level for you to read?”
“Yes …” said Molly uncertainly.
Miss Cribbins pressed a button on the desk, and a blue ray of light shot upward until it surrounded the book. When she released it, the book now floated magically in the air.
“To turn the page you will say, ‘Now,’” said Miss Cribbins. “You will work for three hours, then a servant will come and lead you to your sleeping quarters.”
Molly scowled. “I’m not going to do this,” she said. “You can keep your books.” She tried to pull her hands out of the silver hand molds.
“Up to you,” said Miss Cribbins. She extracted an old-fashioned wooden ruler from a drawer. This she placed above Molly’s hands and pressed another button so that it was suspended by green lights. “This device”—she pointed to the screen—“will judge whether you are absorbing enough information. If it considers that you are not working hard enough, it sends a message to this machine.” She pointed to the box under the monitor. “The ruler will then punish you. An old-fashioned method. Charming—don’t you think?” Miss Cribbins smiled, flashing a perfect row of pearly teeth. Her cat-spider hissed as if laughing in agreement, and without another word the nasty woman left the room.
Molly was left with her hands stuck fast and the ruler hovering above them. The book floated in front of her face and the expectant monitor, attached to her head via its rubber-ended cables, blipped. She wondered how much the ruler hitting her hands would hurt. And so she didn’t even look at the book. A flat red line began to be traced on the screen.
“Are you all right down there?” Molly asked Petula, nudging her gently with her foot. Then she noticed the monitor was making a quicker bleeping noise. The flat red line was now quite long. And the bleeping was becoming more insistent. And then it happened. The ruler came down on her right hand with smart THWACK.
“Owww!” Molly winced from the stinging pain, only to see the ruler slicing through the air to hit her other hand too. “Owww!” Petula put her front paws upon Molly’s knee to check if she was all right. The monitor was now starting on a new red line. Molly eyed it nervously. Already it was half a centimeter long. Three minutes later the ruler came down twice more.
Molly had received this punishment before at school when she was younger, from a vicious teacher called Miss Toadley. But she’d never had more then five pairs of thwacks.
Five smacks from the ruler had hurt a lot when she’d been seven. Perhaps she’d bear the pain better now that she was eleven. The ruler came down for the third time. The palms of Molly’s hands were now branded with pink ruler-shaped marks, and they were feeling sore. After the fourth lash the marks had turned a raspberry pink and her hands were going blotchy. Only twelve minutes had passed. This was torture—torture that Molly could definitely not endure for three hours. Her hands would be raw in half an hour.
Molly couldn’t bear it. There was nothing for it but to do what Miss Cribbins wanted and learn about nuclear fusion. Molly began to read.
Nuclear fusion power stations must not be confused with
nuclear fission power stations. Nuclear fission power
stations split particles of uranium to produce energy. There
are dangerous waste products. Nuclear fusion power stations
make clean, safe energy.
“I’ll get you for this, Miss Cribbins,” Molly said under her breath.
To start with she was so angry that she couldn’t concentrate. But after a few more whacks from the ruler Molly focused on the book. She soon worked out how much concentrating she had to do to stop the red line on the screen growing. Whenever she read something and made her brain remember the information, a nice green line grew on the screen, reaching up like an electronic beanstalk. Three nuggets of learned information kept the ruler at bay. So Molly read on.
In nuclear fusion power stations, hydrogen is compressed
with hydrogen, and miraculously helium is made. While this is happening, vast amounts of energy are also produced. This
energy can be turned into electricity.
It was tricky stuff to remember and very tiring. The minute hand on the flat clock on the wall seemed to crawl slower than a slug. After an hour Molly’s eyes were heavy. After two, she kept nearly falling asleep. Each time her eyelids dropped the ruler gave her a sharp shock to wake her up. Eventually three hours were up and the torture stopped. The monitor gave a little whistle and, with huge relief, Molly pulled her hands free. Her arms and back were stiff from being in the same position for so long. She had pins and needles in her bottom. She lay her head on the desk.
“That was horrible, Petula. Horrible! I can’t do that again.”
Then a servant came and escorted Molly to her sleeping quarters. Molly lay down exhausted in her cell-like room. Petula jumpe
d up and snuggled next to her. Molly switched off the light. Pajamas lay on the chair in the semidarkness, but before Molly had even pulled off her shoes she was asleep. The night drifted by. Molly slept deeply. Then she had nightmares about being trapped down in a dark pit, with a ruler chasing her. The ruler had Princess Fang’s face and the catspider’s legs.
Just before dawn, when the sky was pale indigo, Molly woke to find someone in her room. She sat up quickly, expecting to be knocked on the head or handcuffed at any second. But instead a familiar, soft voice whispered, “Come with me now. There’s no time to waste. Chop-chop! And be ever, ever so quiet!”
Twelve
A s soon as Molly’s eyes adjusted to the light, she recognized the plump form of Nurse Meekles. She was in a pink fluffy dressing gown with her hair up in a net. Molly slipped out of bed, and she and Petula followed. Three courtyards later, after a tunnel of vines, the nurse stopped at one of the cloisters, where there was a stone seat.
“Wait here with your dog,” she said nervously. “The cameras won’t catch you because that pillar blocks their views. In a while I will be back with Micky. I will walk through that door with him.”
Molly recognized the silver entrance at once. “That leads to the jellyfish room.”
“Yes. When you see us, don’t show yourself. Give me two minutes to get us into the main machine room, then come inside and get your electromagnetic suits on too. But, remember, keep yourself hidden from us at all times.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Molly, I can help you a bit, dumpling,” Nurse Meekles whispered, “and I am going to help Micky too. Once we are in the mind-machine room I want you to assist me, and we’re going to have to work fast. Remember, whatever you do, don’t look into Micky’s eyes.” With that she took off.
Molly waited in the darkness and breathed in the sweet smell of night flowers. She wondered what Nurse Meekles was planning. Ten minutes later Petula’s nose pricked up. Micky, swathed in a light blue dressing gown, followed the nurse, leaning heavily on her as he limped along. At the silver door he picked out the combination of numbers on its lock, and Nurse Meekles beckoned him through. She left the door slightly ajar.